'A boring mess': Wired reviews Iron Man 2

Having seen the treatment meted out to several Iron Man II reviewers, I'm going to start this one with a disclaimer.

Disclaimer

I have never read a comic featuring Iron Man. In fact, I have never read a comic with any of the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D, Spider-Man or the X-Men. I grew up on Asterix and Tintin.

For this reason, I'm reviewing Iron Man 2 not as a fan of the Iron Man comic book character, but as a huge fan of 2008's Iron Man. This was a superhero film with a heart, humour, great writing and acting and a thumping soundtrack. It is my home cinema test DVD.

I'm guessing, but I also think the vast, vast majority of people going to see this film will also have never read an Iron Man comic.

Also, this review contains spoilers. And criticism. You have been warned.

Review

I'll be honest: Iron Man II left me cold. I found it hard to care about any of the characters and, aside from a couple of outstanding action scenes, the film was dull.

As far as I can tell from my limited comic knowledge, Iron Man II is a bridge film. It spans the time from the introduction of Iron Man, takes in Tony Stark's personal demons and self-destructive tendencies and ends with the build-up to the formation of the Avengers.

There is nothing wrong with bridge films. Loose ends can be left hanging, sequels can be anticipated, visual clues to later events thrown around. What a film with an episodic nature has to do is explain clearly what happens within its runtime. The motivation for the bad guy's actions shouldn’t be explained in a single sentence and the reason for the introduction of several main characters shouldn’t be left until the third film.

It all starts with Stark at the height of his powers. A showbiz keynote at the Stark Expo reveals that he has essentially brought world peace. America is secure, its enemies too scared of Iron Man to attack. It also reveals his increasing megalomania. Unfortunately, Stark is being slowly poisoned by the Palladium powering the Arc Reactor in his chest. The thing that keeps him alive is also killing him. Irony Man.

Meanwhile, Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) is taking care of his dying father in a rundown Moscow flat, while watching Stark on TV. Dad dies. Ivan has the blueprints to Stark's Arc Reactor (with his dad's name on it next to Stark's dad Howard). He builds his own in the basement, while glancing resentfully at the press cuttings of Stark all over his walls.

Cue the first big action scene. Vanko (I think he's Whiplash from the comics) attacks the Monaco grand prix, cutting a load of cars in half and nearly taking out Stark. Stark was so obnoxious up to this point that I enjoyed seeing him get a beating. Vanko is captured. During a brief prison scene we learn that he doesn't like Stark, but we don’t know why.

Stark's downward spiral continues. In the comics he becomes an alcoholic. In the film this is portrayed by his getting drunk at his birthday party. His best buddy Colonel James Rhodes steals one of the Iron Man suits, has a fight with Stark and flies off to give it to the US Military, as Stark can no longer be trusted with such power.

It is around this point that we get some more plot. We find out that Vanko hates Tony Stark due to Howard Stark having got Vanko's father deported to Russia. Apparently Vanko Sr. was only interested in making money from the Arc Reactor project, which is BAD. So Howard had him shipped back to Russia and stripped of credit for the Arc Reactor. He spent the rest of his days drunk, which rather affected his son Ivan.

I had a problem with this. Howard Stark ruined the Vankos' lives, but this is only mentioned in passing. I admit that Ivan Vanko's reaction is a bit extreme, but there's no contrition from Tony Stark about his father's actions. We'll screw you over as much as we want, but don’t fight back or we'll KICK YOUR ASS! Draw your own parallels, geopolitics fans.

Rush rush rush

We are hurriedly introduced to Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), boss of S.H.I.E.L.D. For some reason S.H.I.E.L.D locks Stark in his house with the brief of inventing a new element to power his chestpiece without poisoning him.

He can then fly off to confront the army of drones that Vanko has created, as well as his buddy Rhodes and Vanko himself. This is by far the best part of the film.

And that's it. A stream of barely-explained plot points, characters introduced in a huge rush to build up to the third film, some predictable jokes, some good jokes, some nice banter, lots of bombast, a few cracking action scenes.

Final word

Fans of the comics will love it, which is great. Unfortunately, while Spidey 1 and 2, X-Men 1 and 2 and the original Iron Man required no prior knowledge to work as films, Iron Man 2 is a bit of a mess -- and a boring mess at that.

Edited by Nate Lanxon

Comments

How in the heck can you say it was boring? There was a lot going on. Sure it wasnt as action oriented but it was focused on plot(s) which isnt a bad thing. I honestly enjoyed it. so much that i saw it twice. One thing that i may agree on is the first iron man was better. i never read the comics and neither did a lot of people